If voters give the Deschutes County 911 district a new permanent tax rate next month, emergency dispatchers’ gain could be the city of Redmond’s loss.

That’s because Redmond would receive roughly $90,000 less in taxes. The culprit is the complex interaction between a pair of state tax laws and local property values, which have plummeted in recent years.

The tax loss due to 911’s new rate would occur only in Redmond and would not affect the total taxes that appear on property owners’ tax bills. Only the distribution of that money would change, said Deschutes County Assessor Scot Langton.

“When you take two constitutional amendments that layer each other and a volatile real estate market, you get some interesting outcomes,” Langton said.

The county 911 district is asking voters to approve a new permanent property tax rate of 39 cents per $1,000 in assessed property value, which is the total of the existing 16-cent permanent rate and temporary 23-cent levy. A higher permanent tax rate would give the 911 district more financial stability, because it would no longer depend upon temporary levies to pay for most of its operations. Employees at the 911 center answer emergency calls and dispatch police and fire services throughout Deschutes County and a small section of western Jefferson County.

Redmond City Manager David Brandt said he recognizes the need for 911 to have a new permanent tax rate, although the city will have to find a way to compensate for the loss of revenue.

“They do need to stabilize their funding, so I’m sympathetic to them on that,” Brandt said.

Rob Poirier, director of the 911 district, said on Tuesday that while he regretted the effect on Redmond’s tax revenue, it’s important for 911 to obtain reliable funding.

“I certainly know that funding is really tight for everybody, and I hate the fact that this changes things,” Poirier said. “I also feel like what we’re doing is the right thing because we need to have the stabilized funding.”

Poirier noted that 911 has already lost tax revenue due to the same interplay of state tax laws and declining property values that could affect Redmond. In the last tax year, the 911 district lost $225,000 it would otherwise have collected from taxpayers in Redmond, due to the tax reduction process called compression.

Compression was created by Measure 5, which voters passed in 1990. Compression occurs when school district tax rates exceed the limit of $5 per $1,000 in real market value and general government taxes exceed the limit of $10 per $1,000 in real market value. Tax rates are proportionately reduced to stay within these limits.

Tax districts usually do not feel the effects of compression because of Measure 50, which voters passed in 1997. Measure 50 created a new property value that grew at an annual rate of 3 percent, and a property owner was taxed on whichever amount was lower: the Measure 50 value, or the real market value, which is the amount the assessor believed a property would fetch on the market. When the real estate crash sent many real market property values below their Measure 50 values, these property owners were taxed on their real market values. In Redmond, where government taxes total $10.20 per $1,000 in assessed value, this triggered compression.

Temporary tax levies, such as the 911 levy, are reduced first through compression. Then, if there are no tax levies or they have been reduced to zero, the permanent tax rates for each taxing district are reduced proportionately, according to the Oregon Department of Revenue.

The $90,000 hit to the city of Redmond’s tax revenue would be small in comparison to the roughly $30 million in total city expenses Brandt expects in the upcoming budget year. But he said it is a more significant loss in the context of the city’s $10 million general fund, which pays for police and other services.

“Ninety-thousand dollars is about the cost of a police officer,” Brandt said on Tuesday.

While it’s unlikely the city would lay off a police officer to balance the budget, Brandt said the city will have to fill the shortfall somehow if voters pass the 911 tax measure.